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Trustee convinced school newsletters don't make the grade

The old-fashioned school newsletter could end up permanently relegated to the recycling bin in schools throughout the Upper Canada District School Board under a new communications plan being put forth by its trustees.

In light of recent issues with bus cancellations and exam rescheduling brought on by this winter's multiple ice storms, trustees at last week's committee of the whole meeting voted in favour of having staff look into a proposal from Cornwall trustee David McDonald calling for the establishment of a board-wide communications system.

Such a system, McDonald said, could use telephone, text and email to send out valuable information on everything from bus cancellations to power outages quickly and efficiently in stark contrast to the traditional paper bulletins long used by schools.

"If we have a critical incident in a school - the power goes out - and we've got fire trucks lined up in front of the school, we can instantly send a message to parents saying 'here's what's happening at your kids' school and your children are safe,'" he said.

McDonald said he has been advocating this type of system for several years and his research shows there are many companies to choose from in establishing a system.

He also said the system would be affordable and could be purchased with options to translate - an area in which he said the old-fashioned newsletter doesn't measure up.

"A school letter doesn't do it because it doesn't translate," he said.

John McAllister, trustee for Athens, Elizabethtown-Kitley, Front of Yonge, Gananoque and Leeds and the Thousand Islands, agreed that sending a newsletter home "is not immediate enough" in a crisis situation, but said he is leery of adopting a communications system that is board-wide.

"I think what is important here is that parents receive the message in the manner in which they are most comfortable," he said. "Here's where I might differ with you, Mr. McDonald, because I am not particularly fond of system-wide systems. I think anything that is school-based is more effective."

But Edwardsburg-Cardinal, North Grenville and Prescott trustee Lisa Swan spoke in favour of the suggestion.

"I think it's very important to have a system like this," she said.

Speaking to the meeting via teleconference, Bill MacPherson, trustee for Drummond/North Elmsley, Lanark Highlands, Montague, Perth, Tay Valley, said his concern is many of the board's more rural communities would suffer from a loss in communication if newsletters were to be no longer used to transmit information to parents.

"I need to remind you, there are parts of our board that do not have access to the Internet," MacPherson said. "For a great many of those communities, the letter home is still the only communication, considering there are certain physical barriers in place that prevent the addition of high-speed Internet there."

But McDonald said much of the communication done with similar systems in other boards is done via phone, while other parents choose to receive it via text.

Director of education David Thomas spoke in favour of the plan, using an example of an available system provided by one company to illustrate his point.

"Let's say there was problem in the school that a principal or someone else wasn't aware of where a child was being bullied by a group of kids and didn't know how to report and thought maybe the teacher they'd told it to hadn't told so and so," he said.

"They have created a system where they would have a hotline created where you could make an anonymous phone call or anonymous email through to the principal ... would receive that almost immediately."

The board of trustees is scheduled to meet next at its regular monthly meeting on February 22.